April 27, 2009

A British air stewardess was sacked for refusing to fly to Saudi Arabia after she was ordered to wear a traditional Islamic robe and walk behind male colleagues.

Lisa Ashton, who worked for BMI, was told that she was expected to wear in public in Saudi Arabia the abaya, a long black robe that leaves only the face uncovered.

She was also told that she should walk behind male colleagues irrespective of their rank, in order to conform with the social codes of the conservative country, The Telegraph reports.shton was instructed to consider the abaya as part of her uniform when flying to Saudi Arabia, but she informed her managers that she considered the requirement discriminatory, and was worried that Saudi Arabia was not safe to travel to because of the danger of terrorist attacks.

"It's not the law that you have to walk behind men in Saudi Arabia, or that you have to wear an abaya, and I'm not going to be treated as a second-class citizen," Ashton said.

"It's outrageous. I'm a proud Englishwoman and I don't want these restrictions placed on myself," she added.

Ashton, 37, had been working for the airline for nine years when they began their service to Saudi Arabia in 2005.

She was earning 15,000 pounds a year and flying to India, the Caribbean and the United States from her base in Manchester, but was horrified to read details of the regulations for staff orking on the new route. (ANI)

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Monday said the country's intelligence agencies believe Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is dead but acknowledged they had no evidence to prove this.

"The Americans tell me they don't know, and they are much more equipped than us to trace him. And our own intelligence services obviously think that he does not exist any more, that he is dead," Zardari told reporters. "But there is no evidence, you cannot take that as a fact," he said. "We are between facts and fiction."

Zardari was responding to reports that Pakistani Taliban in the troubled Swat Valley have said they would welcome bin Laden if he wants to visit the former Pakistani hill resort which is now in the hands of Islamists. "The question is whether he is alive or dead. There is no trace of him," the president said.Source:india today

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK President Karunanidhi on Monday went on a sudden fast early this morning demanding ceasefire in Sri Lanka and called it off after six hours once the island government announced that combat operations have concluded.

"The fast has come to an end in view of the fact that the Sri Lankan government has announced an end to the war," said Karunanidhi reading from a statement from a bed at the fast site at the Anna memorial on the shores of Marina.

The 85-year-old leader called off the fast at 1230 hrs, six hours after he began it demanding an immediate end to the ongoing war in Sri Lanka where he said innocent Tamils were being killed.

Home Minister P Chidambaram said the Sri Lankan government's statement meant that it is end and cessation of hostilities which Indian interlocutors had been urging.

Karunanidhi's announcement was hailed by the huge crowd of DMK activists gathered near the memorial to late C N Annadurai. The DMK workers had been shouting slogans urging him to withdraw his fast.

The fast also undertaken by leaders and workers of the state was also called off. Source:indiatoday

The CBI achieved a major success in the Rs 13-billion Indian Bank scam with the arrest of the main absconding accused of the scandal M Varadarajulu of the MVR Group of Companies by French authorities near Paris.

Terming this as a major success, CBI spokesman S M Khan told reporters on Friday that the agency would soon be moving the French government for his extradition.

The 60-year-old Varadarajulu alias 'MVR', a major defaulter with an exposure of around Rs 4.68 billion, had been evading arrest for last four years and the CBI had secured a 'red corner' notice against him in 1998 besides cancelling his passport.

The accused, belonging to Tiruvarur in Tamil Nadu, had been staying in France under the assumed name of 'Louis Jalu' and had also managed a French passport in March 2001, Khan said.

He was arrested in the suburbs of Paris and a French magistrate sent him to detention pending a request from Indian authorities for his extradition.

Varadarajulu had fled the country immediately after the scam came into light, Khan said adding the CBI has registered 13 cases against him which involved his 15 Indian companies.

The agency has in all registered 45 cases in the Indian Bank scam out of which chargesheets have been filed in 21 cases, the spokesman said.

He said the accused had been staying in Singapore after managing a permanent residence status there. However, he fled the country immediately after the ministry of external affairs cancelled his passport and asked the Singapore authorities to extradite him.

Khan said that the accused had been travelling under assumed names to Dubai, Hong Kong, Thailand and The Netherlands on different passports.

The CBI alleged that the accused used to take loan from the Indian Bank and never returned it causing a colossal loss of Rs 4.68 billion to the bank.

Khan said the agency had enough evidence that the accused had entered into a criminal conspiracy with the then chairman and managing director of the bank M Gopalakrishnan (already arrested and now out on bail) and the duo had allegedly cheated Indian Bank.

He said in the absence of any extradition treaty with France, the CBI will send papers for his extradition through diplomatic channel.

The developments of the Indian Bank scam case are closely monitored by the Supreme Court.

sources:rediffThis incident followed by passport officer's fraud.At this rate of corruption at all fields in all government fields and politicians.Even god cannot save india from destruction.all corruption should be checked and this fellows should be hanged as there are possibility for another round of corruption after releasing from the jail.

April 26, 2009

The Central Bureau of Investigation on Saturday arrested Regional Passport Officer (RPO) of Chennai, Sumathi Ravichandran, her husband and Medical Officer in the Chennai Corporation, Ravichandran, and two travel agents on charges of corruption.

They were produced before a special judge and remanded to judicial custody.

According to a Superintendent of Police of the CBI, Fathima Muzaffar Ahmed, a travel agent of Ahmed World Travels, T.Nagar, allegedly demanded Rs.9,000 as bribe to be paid to the Regional Passport Officer from P.Lakshmanan of MGR Nagar, who had applied for a passport under the tatkal scheme. This was in addition to the prescribed fee and service charge of Rs.1,000.

Mr.Lakshmanan lodged a complaint with the Superintendent of Police (Anti-Corruption Branch), S.Murugan, and a special team was formed to investigate it.

Ms.Ahmed took the applicant to the Passport Office at Shastri Bhavan at 4 p.m. on Friday. Though Ms. Sumathi Ravichandran was not present, she had allegedly given instructions to the Deputy Passport Officer, Rukmangathan, to process the application brought by the agent. It was cleared for issue of passport under the tatkal scheme.

At this stage, the team took Ms.Ahmed into custody and searched her office. A sum Rs.9,000, which was the alleged bribe, was seized.

Officials later searched the residence of the RPO at Kilpauk.

During the operation that commenced late on Friday night, CBI officials recovered cash and documents.

The team also searched the clinic of Dr.Ravichandran on Greams Road.

Investigators are checking at random the profile of applicants who were given tatkal passports in recent months. Raju, a travel agent allegedly associated with Dr.Ravichandran, has also been arrested. Source:The hindu

April 25, 2009

Hundreds who fled intense fighting in Sri Lanka’s war zone were awaiting evacuation from this tiny coastal village on Friday as the UN reported that nearly 6,500 ethnic Tamil civilians were killed in the last three months. The UN estimates that 50,000 people are still trapped in the war zone after more than 1,00,000 fled earlier this week, spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said. The Sri Lankan government had said it estimated that only 10-15,000 people remained in the war zone. The government said a total of 2,934 civilians escaped from the clutches of the LTTE on Friday and reached the government-controlled areas. “This bought the total of civilians arriving from the uncleared areas during the past four days to a massive 1,06,007,” the Media Centre for National Security said. At least 6,432 civilians have been killed in the intense fighting over the past three months and 13,946 wounded, according to a private UN document circulated among diplomatic missions in Sri Lanka in recent days. The UN has declined to publicly release its casualty figures and had no immediate comment on the document. Civilian deaths have increased dramatically, according to the UN. An average of 33 civilians were killed each day at the end of January, and this figure jumped to 116 by April, the document said. More than 5,500 of those killed were inside a government-declared ‘no-fire’ zone. Shortage of food & medicine in war zonePuttumattalan: Concern for the safety of civilians trapped in the ever-shrinking war zone has increased in recent weeks as the government pushed ahead with its offensive to crush the rebels. The UN on Friday reported that nearly 6,500 ethnic Tamil civilians were killed in the last three months. UN spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said the UN estimates that 50,000 people are still trapped in the war zone after more than 1,00,000 fled earlier this week.The Sri Lankan government had said it estimated that only 10-15,000 people remained in the war zone. Dr Thangamuttu Sathyamurthi, a top government health official in the war zone, said there was a severe shortage of food and medicine in the area and that people were dying of starvation. The ongoing violence was so intense that many people were abandoning their dying relatives to flee the fighting, he said. Speaking to journalists on a rare visit to the edge of the war zone, civilians told of Tamil Tiger rebels using them as human shields. Conditions “were terrible as we did not have anything to eat. We thought it’s better to flee,” said Rajeshwari, 40, who gave only her first name. She and other civilians moved with the retreating rebels for months as the advancing army chipped away at the insurgents’ territory, trying to end the nation’s quarter-century of civil strife. The rebels promised the civilians protection, Rajeshwari said. “But they did not keep the promise.”

April 20, 2009

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April 9, 2009

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he Karnataka Government has ordered Judicial Inquiry into last night's group clash at Kyathamaranhalli Extension in the city, Minister for Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Shobha Karandlaje said today.

Talking to newsmen here, she said the incident in which more then 40 houses and four temples were damaged and a number of vehicles burnt would be probed.

Ms Karandlaje, who is also the District Incharge Minister, said the guilty would be booked under law after getting inquiry report. She also held a peace committee meeting in which Congress MLA and Former Minister Tanaveer Sait and leaders of minority community of the Narasihma Raja Assembly Constituency where the incident took place participated.

The authorities had clamped prohibitory orders as precautionary measure and the situation was stated to be tense but under control. The area had been virtually cordoned off with deployment of a large number of police personnel to tackle any eventuality.

Even an April Fool joke is not always as it should be in Kashmir. A prank played by a journalist on the security forces on Wednesday could not only have proved fatal for others, but could also boomerang on him.

A journalist with a New Delhi-based TV channel sent an SMS to a senior army official in Srinagar, saying the fidayeen (suicide squad) had taken control of the Srinagar International Airport.

To send the alarm bells ringing louder, he wrote that former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and People’s Democratic Party chief Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was among people holed up at the airport.

“Five fidayeen have entered ...the airport and former chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed is among the persons holed up there,” read the SMS.

The army immediately cordoned off the airport along with the local police. By then, panic had gripped the airport complex with passengers unable to figure out what was happening. The security forces also zeroed in some “suspects” and kept them under vigil.

Suddenly, the officer gets another SMS from the same journalist, saying, “April Fool”.

A senior army official told HT over the phone from Srinagar, “It’s ridiculous and absolute foolishness on his part. How could he play such a prank on the security forces in Kashmir? We sounded an alert within minutes, as one can’t take chances in Kashmir.”

In Kashmir, security forces treat any information from journalists as ‘credible’. Enraged, the army official informed the Inspector General of Police and the journalist was arrested. He was released only on the intervention of some senior government officials.source